Ninety Years Without Slumbering
by leafyaki
Summary: Time was needed, she was needed. Komui was a man who needed time. Komui/Miranda.


**Title**: Ninety Years Without Slumbering

**Fandom**: D. Gray-man

**Pairing/Character(s)**: Komui/Miranda

**Genre**: General

**Rating**: R

**Summary**: Time was needed, _she_ was needed. Komui was a man who needed time.

**Warnings**: Sex

**Disclaimer**: I do not own D. Gray-man and will never presume that I do.

**Notes**: Written for the DGM Kink Meme.

* * *

Komui was a born schemer.

He loved thinking. He had loved thinking since he was young when he found Father's bookshelves and pored over book after book. Ancient Chinese Literature, Geography, Pythagoras and Euclid and Plato. Book after book, year after year, knowledge seeped into a person who wanted more, more, more.

When he was thirteen and saw his younger sister for the first time, he fell in love and plotted how her life would play out. She'd be a scholar, she'd be the most beautiful woman in the world. She'd dance and captivate men who she wouldn't want, and she'd let them down and come home to her brother. They'd laugh and drink tea.

Then _Innocence_ and _Holy War_ and _Akuma_ entered his life, and everything went to hell.

He continued thinking. Thinking was the only way anyone could climb up the scales. He learnt to flatter. He learnt to smile in different ways, the ingratiating look that went a long way for superficial bastards who just _wouldn't think_. He learnt to tread carefully where he needed to. He learnt who to trust and who not to. He learnt to scheme properly – he had always known how to scheme, he just hadn't had the chance to display it till then.

When he met his sister again, she was young and ten and he was a hundred and twenty three all at once. He plotted how her life would play out, this time much more carefully, much less naively.

She'd survive. That was all he put down. _She will survive_.

.

Komui was new and fresh and he had to tread carefully. He was all smiles and cheer and he had won half the battle.

Kanda was such an interesting person. He was so interesting Komui didn't quite know what to do with him. All he knew, after careful scrutiny, was that he could trust Kanda. He could trust Kanda because Kanda knew what he wanted, and he knew not to trust any of the higher-ups – not trusting meant he would not betray the Order needlessly, thoughtlessly. Komui nodded in approval. It helped (and hurt) that Lenalee liked him and drew him in.

Lavi and Bookman were true to no one but themselves. Komui liked Lavi. Komui was like Lavi. Lavi thought a lot, like Komui did, and sometimes they'd catch each other's eyes and they'd smile like they knew each other's secrets. Lavi knew Komui plotted and thought and planned everything carefully. Sometimes he wondered if Komui plotted so that Lavi would lose his numbness, explode his senses in feelings and emotions and foreign, difficult, heavy sensations. He wondered if Komui knew how his life would play out.

Reever and his Science Team knew him as a slacker, someone who cared deeply for all his Exorcists. He did. Of course he did. It didn't matter if he planned their lives out carefully. It didn't matter if secretly he stole golems and returned them with a cheerful apology, tossing in a comment about how he scrutinized their newest member's life. His eyes were kept carefully blank. On a chess set with discoloured and mismatched pieces, he placed a knight with a broken arm down in its place. He loved his broken chess set. They all played together, under his careful hand.

Carefully he coaxed everyone, drew them where he wanted. He wanted many things. He wanted the war to end. He wanted Lenalee to survive. He genuinely wanted everyone to survive. He wanted to go back to a life where knowledge was earned for joy and desire and not need and desperation.

He wanted time.

.

Komui was a man with blood on his hands and a hard smile on his face. When time fell into his lap, he didn't quite know what to do with her.

She was jittery, and scared, and so obviously newly trained he wanted to call Bak and ask if she really was fit for battle. She was shocked into stillness when she entered Headquarters, which was always busy and bustling and heavy with the smell of antiseptic. He greeted her personally.

She was so frightened. Komui was frightened too. Only one team had all its members intact, and he wanted to keep it that way. It was the team Lenalee was in. He needed time on their side.

She jumped at every slightest touch, every murmur and gentle word. He glanced at Reever and Reever sighed, drawing her away into a small room to sit and breathe for a while.

He murmured her name once, twice, tracing a finger down her files carelessly, eyes alive and scanning. He smiled at how Allen and Lenalee rescued her. He frowned at how she was the indirect cause of Lenalee's temporary loss of mental and physical control. He thought. He needed her to calm down.

He entered the room, smiling carefully at the scared woman.

The room would do. It was small, but cozy enough. It had a fireplace burning in the midst of cold November. It had his discoloured and mismatched Exorcist, wringing her hands, sitting on the bed.

He introduced himself. He took off his spectacles so that light wouldn't glint off of it the way it did when he took a drill to Allen's arm. He had needed Allen to know that Innocence was a serious, heavy matter, and never to harm himself needlessly again. But now he needed her to know that things would be alright, a chant he said to himself everyday.

They talked. He laughed and chuckled at the appropriate places, encouraged her to tell him about the foolish acts Bak and Wong got up to while she was training hard. He smiled. He kept his smile soft, quiet, appreciative.

She was a worn down woman. She was a woman whose years flew by without her knowing it. She had watched a pendulum swing to and fro for far too long, he needed her to stop it, could she do that?

When it looked like she was about to break down he placed a hand on her face. When her eyes lifted up warily he watched the light in it turn from panic to wary gratitude. When he whispered _we need you_ her lips quivered and she shook.

.

Komui felt a century old. She was halfway there, and they both laughed at their lives. He, brilliant and smart and desperate, unable to save his sister. She, the only one who could silence the too-loud chime, with no one and everyone to save.

He whispered, _relax, relax_. Let me show you how much you're needed, how we can do this together.

She was young and lovely, a blooming and beautiful bride. He was young and twenty-nine, a whole world on his shoulders and a whole life ahead of him.

He was the first to share her fears, she was the first to give him hope.

He tilted her face, looked into her eyes, barely hesitant fingers fluttering on her cheek. Their lips were soft, yielding. When he moved his fingers to the collar of her shirt she jumped. He bypassed it, feeling down her right arm, feeling where her Innocence hummed and clicked, tick-tock, ready to stop the world from spinning.

She began to sigh into the kiss, feeling him press her down so that they were side by side, smiling like schoolchildren, shaving years off their shoulders and faces. He couldn't stop touching her arm, she couldn't stop tracing his cheekbones. A kiss turned into a second, a third, fourth and fifth and then she stopped counting altogether and started feeling.

She loved the way they looked, white on black, his coat fluttering down to cover her sides as fingers traced down arms and faces. He loved the way she relaxed and tensed alternately when he settled down on her, barely shifting, swallowing her sigh and quiet gasp.

_Wrong, right__, so very wrong_, he thought, eyes closed and muscles tensed and lips pressed against her skin. She was a beautiful, discoloured, mismatched bishop; his hand wavered, he didn't know where to put her down. Her breaths fluttered over the set, and he knew, yes, she would be the one who could change everything, save so many people. He needed her to know she was needed.

She was far too fresh for a worn-out woman, he had went far too long without someone who knew what he felt, what he wanted. They were warm, their lips were wet and a little uncomfortable, they smiled and laughed a little too much, they fumbled but they moved, rubbed at the right place. When they slid against one another, white against black, she only had to gasp for him to know that she was close, to remind him that he was close too, grappling at the edges and about to put the final piece down.

Her breath fluttered, flew over the chess set, and he could finally groan and gasp and lie down, just breathe for a while. It was quiet and a little embarrassing until they chuckled, they were a little rueful, they were a little red-faced. _We must keep this a secret_, he said. But he couldn't stop grinning. He had time. Time was on their side. Time was needed, _she_ was needed.

She laughed, nodded. He smiled, felt that the sound of her laugh was enough to overpower any chime. They would be alright. He could smile for the first time, go back to feeling young and able and ready to face the world.

.

Komui sent her off and on his little set a little bishop entered the great no man's land. He planned and schemed and updated his little piece of parchment, smiling at that soft and muffled chime that was slowing, stuttering, stopping.

Komui was a born schemer, blood on his hands, a hard smile on his face, with a key to winning a battle.


End file.
